


No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

by danceswithhamsters01



Series: Reddit Prompts [45]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bandits & Outlaws, Crestwood (Dragon Age), Fifth Blight (Dragon Age), Gen, Refugees, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 04:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18296435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Based on a prompt from r/dragonageIf you've played Dragon Age: Inquisition, you learn what happened in the Crestwood area of Ferelden during the Fifth Blight. But what had the Hero of Ferelden been up to, had she and her companions bothered to visit the area?





	No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

_**Prompt 2:** In DAI you learn about the village of Crestwood, and what happened there during the Blight. Your Warden most likely passed through it at some point during their travels during the Blight. Were they involved in any of the happenings? Or did they and company stay just one night and move on? Did they hear about the flooding after? Choose however they were involved and write it out._

 

They were drifting westward again. After the debacle of Honnleath and the mage’s control over her temper fraying badly at Soldier’s Peak, the pair of Wardens thought it best to get back to the matter of putting their treaties to good use, the sooner the better. They only had so much time to gather an army before there was no fertile land left for the citizens to begin rebuilding their lives on. The band decided that Orzammar would be the next logical place to go, as it was only a few days march to the west from Soldier’s Peak.

 

Sevarra had been silent for a little over a day. She chose to keep to herself when they weren’t engaged in battle, preferring the company of the mabari who did not give her questioning looks or want to “talk about what happened.” She had let loose with a profanity-laden tirade at the centuries-old Warden blood mage who called himself Avernus. After the tear in the Veil separating the world of the spirits and the world of mortals had been mended, she’d stabbed the old mage. While Alistair hadn’t questioned her, the rest of the group had looked on in horror. The only explanation she gave was that the Grey Wardens who’d died because of the blood mage using them as test subjects deserved justice.

 

After soundly beating a pack of bandits who’d been foolish enough to attempt attacking refugees making their way north, the Wardens and their companions began either assisting people with reloading the wagons that had not broken in the case of Leliana, Alistair, and Rory; or falling to picking over the bandits for anything of use in the case of Zevran and Morrigan, or cleaning personal weapons as Sten did. Wynne busied herself mending one of the men who’d been stabbed in the leg. Sevarra sought out the eldest man, who seemed to be the one to whom the other refugees listened.

 

“Where did you and your people set out from?” the Warden mage asked the silver-maned man who looked like he’d been a blacksmith before everything went mad.

 

“Lothering, m’lady,” he answered. “We just barely got away before the bulk of the darkspawn horde fell upon the town. I’m told that it is a complete loss, not even a single building remains standing.”

 

The mage fought hard to keep her face neutral. Her heart was another matter. Her heart ached painfully. Lothering had been her and Alistair’s first stop after miraculously surviving Ostagar. They’d found Leliana, Rory, and Sten there. The little group had done what they could to help out the people there; gathering plants for medicines, putting bandits down like rabid dogs, and even dealing with large aggressive predators who’d gotten too close to the town’s outskirts. The family of elves she’d met and the little boy separated from his family came to her mind. She hoped they’d gotten away, too. She felt too afraid to seek them out in this group of survivors, lest she not find them and have yet another reason to weep and be angry at herself for not doing enough.

 

“We’ll travel with you; to the next town, at least,” the mage said.

 

“I-- Thank you, m’lady.” the man appeared to be relieved at the prospect of protection while his band traveled. “It’s good to find some people who try to be decent when the world goes insane.”

 

“We’re Grey Wardens, what few of us the Teyrn didn’t manage to murder. A Blight doesn’t get canceled just because most of our order got killed. We have a job to do,” she answered.

 

The words “Teyrn,” “Grey Wardens,” and “murder” seemed to shock the man into silence. He merely nodded and went to confer with fellow survivors. The mage went in search of her fellow Warden. She found him as he finished tying a rope around a chest to keep it shut.

 

“What is the nearest town from here?” she asked.

 

He stood up and stretched before answering. “Crestwood, why?”

 

“We’re going to Crestwood,” she said.

 

He eyed her questioningly. “Why?”

 

“We’re escorting these people to safety. Or at least to somewhere safer than the open road. I suspect this wasn’t the first time bandits attacked them.”

 

“That’s a little bit out of our way if we want to get to Orzammar as soon as possible,” he said.

 

She looked him in the eye. “These people are from Lothering. Their elder told me that there’s nothing left of the town. He said darkspawn fell upon it. They can’t go back, not south.”

 

He swallowed hard. “Crestwood it is, then.”

 

Half the party objected in some manner, while the other half seemed open to the idea of escorting refugees. In the two days it took to travel to Crestwood, two different bands of bandits thought to try their luck, only to find that the civilians had protectors who were far more talented than farmers holding weapons. Sevarra had to fight back letting a small smile curve her lips when several of the women and children cheered after she’d turned a few of the bandits into standing ice sculptures. It would seem they realized that magic wasn’t the sole purview of witches from fairytales who lured small children away, never to be seen again. In light of so many mundane folk who’d drawn back in fear when they learned she could do magic, being appreciated was an unusual but welcome experience.

 

Finally, they reached Crestwood. Wasting no time, the Wardens had sought the mayor out and filled him in about who the refugees were and began conferring about what best to do to keep both townsfolk and refugees safe. During the journey, a couple of the refugees had gotten sick and pale. Naturally, the locals were leery. The mayor promised the Wardens up and down that there was a safe place nearby that the sick could rest while they recovered. The mage didn’t seem quite as convinced.

 

“Doesn’t he strike you as a little, I don’t know… slimy? The mayor, that is?” she asked once they were alone and out of earshot of the locals. “He seemed rather… accommodating. Overly so.”

 

“Contrary to popular belief, there are good people in the world. Sure, they’re rare, but still, there are some,” Alistair replied.

 

“Right, and the fact that the refugees came escorted by heavily armed warriors, a trio of mages, and an assassin had nothing to do with his seeing reason almost immediately,” she replied dryly.

 

“You forgot the mabari,” he snickered.

 

“Fang? He’s a sweet angel! He wouldn’t hurt a fly! Well, not unless they threatened us first,” she said.

 

Alistair snorted. Sevarra doted over that dog to the point of painting pretty pictures with her fingers on his hide using the kaddis that was supposed to be a “war paint,” not a “make the dog cute” paint. More than one bandit had curled over giggling before being overwhelmed by a mabari covered in heart shapes made with kaddis.

 

“I’m just not so certain that this ‘perfectly safe’ place he swore he had in mind for the sick is all that safe. Or near.”

 

She spared a glance toward one of the teenagers, a stocky boy with an explosion of freckles over his face and blond curls on his head, who hadn’t been feeling well. Something about the illness made both her instincts as a healer, and oddly enough, her still-maturing Grey Warden talents insist that something was amiss.

 

“Doesn’t that boy,” she nodded toward the freckly blond when the lad wasn’t looking, “give you a feeling that something isn’t right?”

 

The other Warden narrowed his eyes while taking a look at the boy. “I think,” he said after several moments, “that the stress of what’s been going on is just catching up. I bet it’s just a summer cold and a fever. No use jumping at every hoof print thinking it was made by a unicorn when we’re following a herd of horses.”

 

She frowned, not completely convinced. “Perhaps you’re right.”

 

The following morning, the Grey Wardens and their companions left Crestwood and made for the Frostback mountains and the city of Orzammar that lay below them. Years later, it would come to light what the Mayor of Crestwood had done to both the refugees and his own townsfolk, thanks to the efforts of Inquisitor Trevelyan. The Inquisitor had been rather surprised at the thank you note that came to her after the Mayor’s execution. It was from the King of Fereleden, letting her know that he was glad that the citizens who’d died because of the murderer’s actions finally got justice.


End file.
